Fr. Gheorghe Calciu: Living words
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God!”
You know this very well. That is why you go to churches and monasteries - because you know you can find pure people there, people who have a deeper connection with God and who see Him. And I told you that I heard from the monks on Mt. Athos something about Elder Petroniu from the Romanian monastery Prodromou - that when he was praying, he could see the bloodied feet of our Savior on the Holy Altar. He saw God. And we, too, if we keep our hearts pure or purify them, will see God in one way or another. God can talk to you through a discovery - and I am speaking about genuine discoveries, not the satanic ones - but God can also talk to you through interior insights, through deep understandings of certain mysteries of Salvation.
I confess that many times I have prayed, and maybe because of my unbelief, God did not fulfill my request; but my prayer was also fulfilled many times! I prayed for others, and my prayer was fulfilled, and I was terrified! Who am I that God listens to my prayer? As the Psalmist says, what is man that he can be so honored and only slightly lower than the angels? But God doesn’t fulfill our prayers for our virtues, but because of His goodness and for the faith with which we pray.
If you have a pure heart and pray to God, He listens to your request. Never pray for someone’s misfortune! Those who do evil go to witches. It is pointless to pray to God to do something bad to another - because God is good before being just; and then, how do you know you are right, since you are subjective? We often have only our interests in front of us, and we forget about truth and justice.
(From “Living words” by Fr. Gheorghe Calciu, edited by Diaconesti Monastery and published by Bonifaciu Press, 2009 - pages 175-176)
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We are afraid when we see the sins that are committed today, this continuous persuasion that media, school, and education exert upon children and young people, telling them there is no sin and that everything is allowed. This is a deception of the devil, who wants to convince us that he doesn’t exist. This is his greatest cunning!
Nothing can extinguish in us the desire for something better, the thirst for the living water. Just like the woman who wanted never to thirst again, never to go to the well again, we also want to taste of it once; we want people to taste from the living water offered by Christianity and never thirst again, never go to other places and other wells to draw water from, but receive this water once and for all and know the truth in Jesus Christ. This nation is ready to be harvested. God has sown in this nation the seed of faith, and it produced a crop, even though the ears of wheat are not well-formed yet, and they might produce only thirty or sixty grains. But our duty is to pray for the harvesters, for those who harvest with the scythe of faith, for those who gather with love and hope.
(From “Living words” by Fr. Gheorghe Calciu, edited by Diaconesti Monastery and published by Bonifaciu Press, 2009 - page 98)
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God doesn’t reward your deeds and their results, but your effort.
(From “Living words” by Fr. Gheorghe Calciu, edited by Diaconesti Monastery and published by Bonifaciu Press, 2009 - page 65)
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Look at evil people - how many things they invent to do evil, how much mental effort they waste to imagine evil, how many ways they find to sin, to hurt others…Whereas good people are very simple. They know they do good, and they do it. They don’t strive to invent all kinds of hidden, subterranean systems.
(From “Living words” by Fr. Gheorghe Calciu, edited by Diaconesti Monastery and published by Bonifaciu Press, 2009 - page 43)
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In this life, if you live alone, you are lost. If you live in a community, you stand to gain! Because solitude isolates you, makes you powerless, and prevents your spirit from enjoying the good things of this world, especially the spiritual world. Whereas life in a community saves you in many difficult circumstances.
The most tragic posture of human beings is solitude, total isolation. St. Cyprian says: “Each of us falls on our own. But we are saved in the community - in the community of the Church!” We carry each other’s weaknesses and advance toward salvation this way. No one gets saved on their own - not the faithful Christian, not the priest, not the monk.
We are all saved in the community, in Christ’s Church, and we are all responsible for one another. If someone is weak, take their burden and carry it. If you are weak, ask someone to carry your burden. This way, united in prayer and good deeds, we will arrive at the glorified Resurrection of our Savior so we can live together with Him and see the heavenly light.
(From “Living words” by Fr. Gheorghe Calciu, edited by Diaconesti Monastery and published by Bonifaciu Press, 2009 - pages 37-38)
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Who is able to see the light of Tabor?
Hesychast monks who are spiritually advanced, after many ascetic practices, are able to see the uncreated light, which cannot be seen by our physical eyes. When mentioning the light of the Transfiguration, the Gospels use only a parable because the two worlds, the physical and the divine, are of different natures - but what words can we use to express this? Our language is poor, our mind is powerless, our spirit is overwhelmed by fear, and only God strengthens the heart so it can see the light of Tabor without perishing.
Moses saw the light of Tabor; Elijah saw the light of Tabor when God spoke to him. The Apostles saw it; the Roman soldiers saw it at the Lord’s Resurrection; also the myrrh-bearing women. The first martyr, Stephen the Archdeacon, saw it when the Sinhedrion judged him - he raised his eyes to the heavens and saw the glory of God. The long line of hesychast monks saw it, and also those whom God made worthy to see it by His good will, regardless of their merits.
Mother Alexandra (Princess Ileana of Romania) also saw it. When she writes, “My island is a place of absolute quiet, even though there are some sounds. There is no shadow, and light pierces everything; love envelops you, and no horizon limits my gaze. The expanse is so wide that I am only a dot within it; yet I am not lost, because there, God holds me in His hand.” - is she not talking about the light of Tabor, which pierces everything?
Mother Alexandra doesn’t go into details because of her monastic modesty, but the true meaning of her words is clear for those who have at least some idea about this uncreated energy. Undoubtedly, Mother Alexandra was able to see this light through long asceticism and worthy (humanly speaking) effort - this is why she leaves details out.
This “island of peace” can be fully explored only after death. I, too, saw the light of Tabor once, in my childhood, without knowing what it was - but my heart was pierced by it because it was the heart of an innocent child. I saw this light once more, much later, when I was in prison. God sent it to me so I could learn from it, but my heart and mind could not contain its meaning, and I lost it altogether.
(From “Living words” by Fr. Gheorghe Calciu, edited by Diaconesti Monastery and published by Bonifaciu Press, 2009 - pages 160-161)
Note: These fragments were originally published in Romanian at https://doxologia.ro/parintele-gheorghe-calciu